托福阅读真题Official 44 Passage 2（一）

托福阅读真题Official 44 Passage 2（一）

The Use of the Camera Obscura

The precursor of the modern camera,the camera obscura is a darkened enclosure into which light is admitted through a lens in a small hole.The image of the illuminated area outside the enclosure is thrown upside down as if by magic onto a surface in the darkened enclosure.This technique was known as long ago as the fifth century B.C.in China.Aristotle also experimented with it in the fourth century B.C.,and Leonardo da Vinci described it in his notebooks in 1490.In 1558 Giovanni Battista Della Porta wrote in his twenty-volume work Magia naturalis(meaning“natural magic”)instructions for adding a convex lens to improve the quality of the image thrown against a canvas or panel in the darkened area where its outlines could be traced.Later,portable camera obscuras were developed,with interior mirrors and drawing tables on which the artist could trace the image.For the artist,this technique allows forms and linear perspective to be drawn precisely as they would be seen from a single viewpoint.Mirrors were also used to reverse the projected images to their original positions.

Did some of the great masters of painting,then,trace their images using a camera obscura.Some art historians are now looking for clues of artists’use of such devices.One of the artists whose paintings are being analyzed from this point of view is the great Dutch master,Jan Vermeer,who lived from 1632 to 1675 during the flowering of art and science in the Netherlands,including the science of optics.Vermeer produced only about 30 known paintings,including his famous The Art of Painting.The room shown in it closely resembles the room in other Vermeer paintings,with lighting coming from a window on the left,the same roof beams,and similar floor tiles,suggesting that the room was fitted with a camera obscura on the side in the foreground.The map hung on the opposite wall was a real map in Vermeer’s possession,reproduced in such faithful detail that some kind of tracery is suspected.When one of Vermeer’s paintings was X-rayed,it did not have any preliminary sketches on the canvas beneath the paint,but rather the complete image drawn in black and white without any trial sketches.Vermeer did not have any students,did not keep any records,and did not encourage anyone to visit his studio,facts that can be interpreted as protecting his secret use of a camera obscura.

In recent times the British artist David Hockney has published his investigations into the secret use of the camera obscura,claiming that for up to 400 years,many of Western art’s great masters probably used the device to produce almost photographically realistic details in their paintings.He includes in this group Caravaggio,Hans Holbein,Leonardo da Vinci,Diego Velázquez,Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,Agnolo Bronzino,and Jan van Eyck.From an artist’s point of view,Hockney observed that a camera obscura compresses the complicated forms of a three-dimensional scene into two-dimensional shapes that can easily be traced and also increases the contrast between light and dark,leading to the chiaroscuroartistic term for a contrast between light and dark effect seen in many of these paintings.In Jan van Eyck’s The Marriage of Giovanni Arnolfini and Giovanna Cenami,the complicated foreshortening(a technique for representing an image in art that makes it appear to recede in space)in the chandelier and the intricate detail in the bride’s garments are among the clues that Hockney thinks point to the use of the camera obscura.

So what are we to conclude.If these artists did use a camera obscura,does that diminish their stature.Hockney argues that the camera obscura does not replace artistic skill in drawing and painting.In experimenting with it,he found that it is actually quite difficult to use for drawing,and he speculates that the artists probably combined their observations from life with tracing of shapes.

Question 1 of 14

What can be inferred from paragraph 1 about Giovanni Battista Della Porta’s contribution to the camera obscura?

A.He translated a Chinese description of the use of the camera obscura and made the technique available to artists.

B.His convex lens made the projected image easier to trace.

C.His version of the camera obscura allowed for the later addition of a mirror.

D.His improvements relied heavily on design changes proposed earlier by Leonardo da Vinci.

正确答案：B

题目详解

题型分类：推论题

原文定位：根据题干中的题型标识词infer可以判断此题为推论题。定位词：Giovanni Battista Della Porta。用定位词定位到文章第一段第五句。该句概括了此人的贡献：在他的一部作品中介绍了增加一个凸透镜来改善投射在暗箱的帆布或画板上的图像质量，这样就能获得图像的轮廓。

选项分析：

B选项中convex lens对应第五句的adding a convex lens to...，选项中made the projected image easier to trace对应第五句的to improve the quality of the image thrown against...where its outlines could be traced。

A选项说此人翻译了一篇描述暗箱使用的中文文章，文中没有该信息，无中生有。

C选项中的mirror是第六句的内容，不是此人的贡献。与原文表述不符。

D选项中提到了Leonardo da Vinci，但文中这两个人之间并无关联，无中生有

Question 2 of 14

The word“portable”in the passage is closest in meaning to

A.valuable

B.practical

C.moveable

D.popular

正确答案：C

题目详解

题型分类：词汇题

题干分析：词汇所在句子Later,portable camera obscuras were developed,with interior mirrors and drawing tables on which the artist could trace the image译为“后来，便携式暗箱得以发展，里面安置了镜子和制图板，艺术家可以通过它们捕捉到图像”，portable意思为“便携的，可携带的”。

选项分析：

C选项movable可移动的。

A选项valuable有价值的。

B选项practical实用的。

D选项popular流行的。